"I am certain to come back," and had he finished the sentence as it was in his thoughts it would have been with, "for vengeance upon your cursed race who have robbed me of Olive."
"If so soon, he can wait until then for the Little Raven to fill his wigwam, and he can bring presents to make her gay for her bridal."
That he did not wish the bride to know of his intentions was proof positive to her mind of treachery, and though the conversation drifted into love matters and he protested it in the most ardent fashion, yet she kept him at a distance and would not permit him to enjoy caresses in the slightest degree. But she managed to convince him (though without pledging herself) that she adored him more than all the world—would keep his secrets and be true to him in all respects, and when they separated he believed her heart to be all his own.
There would, however, have been a great revulsion in his feelings if he could have seen how she doubled like a hare upon her trail as soon as his back was turned, and entered the village by another path—how she flung aside her blanket and the face that was revealed was stamped with any thing but tender emotions—was that of the Burning Cloud!
But he met the Little Raven soon afterward, and they had a long and familiar conversation (though without referring to what had already transpired that night), and she managed to deepen still more the impression he had received, and he felt that he was playing the part of a scoundrel. But, the heart of woman was nothing more than a straw, and he cared as little about breaking it.
With all his arrangements perfected, he took his rifle upon the following morning and started out as if for a brief hunt, passing the Little Raven, pausing and bidding her a kind farewell. But he also passed another who knew far more, and whom he did not see.
Burning Cloud was peeping at him through the curtains of her wigwam, and as soon as he had disappeared turned to her brother—a young warrior of very noble face and figure, and whispered:
"Follow him as the wolf follows the wounded buffalo, as the eagle does the dove—the panther the young doe. Be ever near him and yet never in sight. Hear every word that issues from his lips but let yours be dumb as death. Be secret as the mole and crafty as the spider. Let your footsteps be as light as the falling snowflake, and your ear as sharp as the stag. Let nothing escape you. More than you dream of hangs upon what you may learn—perhaps even the fate of the whole tribe. If he turns back, bring me the news before he can get half the way. Let nothing stop you, fire or tempest, heat or cold, sunshine or rain, hunger, thirst, sleep, rest, thunder or lightning. But should he not come back," and her eyes flashed still more vividly and her frame trembled with wild excitement, "should he attempt to fly like a loon-hearted coward, this!" and she handed him a long knife that had been ground to razor-like sharpness, "and bring back his scalp or come not at all."
"My ears are like the soft earth in the springtime to receive, and like it when frozen in the winter to retain," he said, and slowly disappeared from the village, as active, crafty and well-prepared a spy as ever followed trail for knowledge or for blood!
For two days and two nights he tracked the white man. Then the trail of the emigrants was reached, and he easily divined that the object of the renegade was to intercept some passing train, and fortune favored him. He saw one toiling along in the distance, knew where it would camp, reached the spot ahead of them, and when Parsons came up was hidden so as to watch all that happened—watch and listen.